TransCollaborate is proud to announce the publication of a special journal issue on the topic of collaborative translation, appearing in the translation journal mtm, and edited by our own committee members Jessica Griffiths and Christian Griffiths.

This special issue is a significant accomplishment for TransCollaborate, as it represents our largest research output to date, and moreover provides an important resource for future work in the field of collaborative translation. We hope that it will provide a touchstone for all of those within our network who wish to explore and experiment with our collaborative methodologies.

All TransCollaborate members will receive a PDF copy of the special issue. To become a member, join here.

TransCollaborate’s activities this year have brought us into contact with Melbourne’s many Chinese communities, including both migrant and international-student cohorts. We have found many ways to connect with these communities through collaborative translation.

Classroom collaborations

EAL students of the Australian Technical Management College in Melbourne Australia recently undertook collaborative translation with their trainer. The source texts are taken from a Chinese textbook featuring texts of 300+ words on a range of general topics.

Translation 1

23/05/2019

The first text to be translated covered the story of the historic satellite link between Shanghai and Toronto, Canada on the night of the new millennium, January 1st 2001.

Translation 3

27/06/2019

This text is an anecdote told by a father about attending a parent-teacher interview at his son’s school. From a cultural perspective, it is interesting to note that the father’s irreverent response to the rather strict attitude of the school skewers the many of the myths we may hold about parental expectations of student academic performance.

The translation itself was highly accurate in meaning, but it departed significantly from the semantic structure of the original text. This could be a sign that the collaboration has grown in confidence from its first attempts.

Method and outcomes

The collaborations take place between a class of pre-intermediate students, all Chinese speakers, and their trainer, a native-English speaker. The translations take just under 90 minutes. The process is usually energetic, and it clearly activates the students, who otherwise may struggle to express themselves in the classroom. The translation offers multiple opportunities to teach and illustrate grammar and vocabulary. It also offers opportunities for cultural exchange, where collaborators can describe cultural practices of different times and places.

The feedback from these activities is positive, with all participants requesting copies of the completed translations, and with some asking if the exercise could be repeated in future classes.

This collaboration has confirmed or supported the following insights for TransCollaborate:

That collaborations with pre-intermediate students are possible, if the source text is sufficiently simple in grammar and vocabulary.

That collaborative translation is an excellent classroom activity for monolingual learner groups, as it productively integrates a range of language skills.

That an experienced target collaborator can collaboratively translate a text of around 300-400 words in a 90-minute session.

*****

Marco Polo workshops

08/05/2019

One of our closest partners, the Marco Polo project, has been facilitating weekly language exchange workshops since 2011. These workshops match Chinese-English bilinguals, including international students and native English learners of Chinese, to translate prose texts from Chinese into English. We have been given the opportunity to run our own Marco Polo workshops, applying our own unique methodology.

Following in the spirit of our previous Emerging Writers Festival workshop, our Marco Polo workshops translate the “Ci” of Su Dong Po. Our workshops involve the participation of several “target collaborators” with little-to-no experience with Chinese, but who have experience in translating creative texts in various contexts. Each target collaborator facilitates a small group to translate a Ci, marshaling input from collaborators with different language backgrounds and creative skills.